February 23, 2011

Libya: Canadians call for action now

The Canadian Charger

(Ottawa) A delegation met opposition parties, the Liberals, NDP and BQ, to demand immediate action by the Canadian government and NGOs to save the pro-democracy revolution in Libya. The delegation included Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, Ms. Safia Aghliw, a young Libyan Canadian, Mr. Ahmad Zarrug, a Libyan Canadian businessman who has just returned from the Libyan capital Tripoli and Mrs Faizah Ghadban-Kandar, an active member of Ottawa's Arab and Muslim communities.

The
delegation called the Canadian Red Cross to work with their counterparts in
both Egypt and Tunisia to provide safe haven areas and medical services at the
boarders.

The
delegation also asked the Canadian government to press the International
Criminal Court (ICC) to hold Gaddafi, his family and his regime responsible for
crimes of genocide.

The
delegation pointed to the fact that sanctions work against the people of Libya
not against the regime.

“Establishing
a no-fly zone will prevent Gaddafi from using the air-force against the Libyan
people,” the delegation stressed, “We also call on our government and other
governments to freeze the assets of Gaddafi, his family and his senior
officials.”

As
of today Moammar Gadhafi and his men killed more than 1,000 civilians and
wounded more than 10,000.

The
NDP issued a strong statement calling on “the Canadian government to use all
available diplomatic channels to help put an end to the Libyan regime’s violent
oppression.”

“Canada
should also be working with its international partners to bring the issue to
the UN Security Council and work to establish a no-fly zone in Libya’s
airspace,” the NDP statement added.

Gadhafi
earlier this week put his son on television to do his talking for him; and when
that only made protesters more defiant, the ageing tyrant himself took to the
airwaves.

After
coming to power in 1969, in a military coup, at the age of 27, he'd survived
numerous assassination attempts.

But
Gaddafi learned nothing from the recent revolutions of his neighbours: Tunisia
and Egypt.

Like
the other tyrants Ben Ali and Mubarak, the world around them had changed, but
they didn't change with it; and why should they have: they had absolute power;
or so they thought.

The
internet had made the world a global village, which espoused the values of the
liberalism of the enlightenment: democracy, pluralism, human rights, and
respect for each individual human being, regardless of social status.

Yes
people can and are denied their basic human rights, but those doing the denying can no longer be seen to be doing so and
still maintain their credibility with their constituents and the rest of
humankind.

Because
the world is now so interconnected and interdependent, without this
credibility, the use of brute force will no longer ensure power in the long
run, which - in the digital age - is becoming much shorter than it used to be.

Mubarak,
in particular, would have had the troops open fire on the people demonstrating
in the streets of Egypt, if he could have; but Egypt's military leaders understood
that in today's world, they could not have slaughtered their own citizens and
continued to hold their positions of power for very long.

Moreover,
none of these leaders wanted to find themselves in front of the International
Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague – as other tyrants like former Serbian
President Milosevic did so, for Egypt's military leaders, the decision was
easy: either he goes or we go.

Ironically,
many of Gaddafi's military leaders and diplomats have come to the same
conclusion, as the defections from the ranks escalates on a daily basis; and -
as in Egypt – most, if not all, of these defectors are people who owe their
lofty stations in life to the brutal tyrants, whose dirty work they did for so
long.

Former
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin once said of Gaddafi: “He's a man with an
obvious sense of history,” but then MacKenzie King said similar things about
Hitler. When will they, or should we say we, ever learn?

After
sacrificing so much to be accepted into the international community, Gaddafi
shut down the internet and telephone lines and tried to prevent foreign
journalists from entering the country,
because even he realized it couldn't be “business as usual,” if the
brutal images got out to the world.

As
witnesses stream across the Libya border from Egypt, a common narrative is
emerging: Gaddafi's forces are opening fire on large crowds of people, with
hollowed out bullets designed to kill, and hunting down and indiscriminately
slaughtering anyone they can, using tanks and warplanes, all the while aided by
planeloads of “mercenaries “ - no doubt poverty stricken young men from other
African countries, willing to kill anyone for a little money.

“What
we are witnessing today is unimaginable,” said Tripoli resident Adel Mohamed
Saleh, on a live broadcast on al Jazeera television. “Warplanes and helicopters
are indiscriminately bombing one area after another. There are many, many dead.
Anyone who moves, even if they are in a car, they will be hit.”

Meanwhile,
Gaddafi's delegation to the UN pleaded for intervention to stop the genocide as
troops and warplanes mowed down the protesters in Tripoli.

“He
will kill as much as he can,” said Libya's Deputy UN Ambassador Ibrahim
Dabbashi, urging foreign governments to impose an immediate “no-fly zone” over
Libya to forestall a large-scale massacre.

In
response, leaders of the international community – the ones the world is
looking toward to do something – is issuing the same old time-worn hollow
rhetoric.

British
Prime Minister David Cameron called the slaughter “appalling and unacceptable.”

Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper displayed his eloquence, and not much more, when
he said: “We find the actions of the government, firing upon its own citizens
to be outrageous and unacceptable, and we call on the government to cease this
kind of violence immediately. We encourage the government of Libya to engage in
peaceful dialogue with its people, towards political and economic reform.”

Lawrence Cannon, Canada’s Minister
of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement, “Canada strongly condemns the violent
crackdowns on innocent protesters that have resulted in many injured and
killed. We call on the Libyan security forces to respect the human rights of
demonstrators and uphold their commitment to freedom of speech and the right to
assembly. The Libyan authorities must show restraint and stop the use of lethal
force against protesters.”

Liberal
Foreign Affairs Critic Bob Rae said in a statement, “The people of Libya are
calling for change. Before more innocent civilians are needlessly killed, the
Qaddafi regime must immediately and unreservedly cease its lethal tactics and
listen to the will of the people.”

In a statement, U.S
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: “Now is the time to stop this unacceptable
bloodshed. We're working urgently with friends and partners around the world to
convey this message to the Libyan government.”

Subsequently,
the UN Security Council held a closed door session, and then condemned the use
of violence and called for those responsible for attacks on civilians to be
held to account. Does this sound familiar?

The
White House said global powers must speak with one voice in response to the
"appalling violence" in Libya and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton said the United States would take "appropriate steps" in
time. This, of course, means – like Rwanda - after the massacre, not before.

Meanwhile,
Peru suspended diplomatic relations with Libya and British Foreign Secretary
William Hague said there were "many indications of the structure of the
state collapsing in Libya." Britain and other nations have said they are
trying to evacuate nationals from Libya by plane and ship.

The
reports of the bloody crackdown have put pressure on President Barack Obama to
intervene, with U.S. politicians criticizing his silence and calling for
military action ranging from bombing Libyan air fields to imposing no-fly
zones. But don't expect much from Obama.

He's
wonderfully eloquent with highbrow rhetoric, which belies a vacuous, hollow
man, who’s really nothing more than a Harvard-educated imbecile, like his
Secretary of State.